DEA Report: Marijuana Seizures Increased By 20 Percent In 2016

Seizures of indoor and outdoor cannabis crops by the US Drug Enforcement Administration rose in 2016, according to annual data compiled by the agency.

According to the DEA’s Domestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Statistical Report, agents confiscated more than 5.3 million marijuana plants nationwide in 2016. The total is a 20 percent increase over the agency’s 2015 seizure totals and is the most plants seized by the DEA since 2011, when agents confiscated more than 6.7 million plants.

As in past years, the DEA’s eradication efforts primarily targeted California. Of the total number of plants confiscated nationwide by the DEA in 2016, 71 percent (3.78 million) were seized in California. Federal agents seized an estimated 552,000 plants in Kentucky, 333,000 in Texas, 128,000 in Tennessee, and 124,000 in West Virginia.

Only seven percent of all marijuana seized by the DEA came from indoor grows.

The agency reported making 5,657 arrests in conjunction with their cannabis eradication efforts – a ten percent decline from 2015.

The DEA also reported seizing some $ 52 million in assets during their confiscation operations – nearly twice as much as the agency reported the prior year.

Full data from the DEA’s 2016 report, as well as from past years’ reports, is available online here.